


pick up that rock, drink from that lake (i do my best but i'm made of mistakes)

by nirav



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-16 00:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/855620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 31 years, the closest Myka Bering has ever had to surgery is getting her wisdom teeth and tonsils removed, and there’s nothing in those memories to prepare her for this.  [Post-ep for "What Matters Most"]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Unnecessarily In Depth Author's Note: I *hate* cancer storylines in television because they're generally cheap and lame and just lazy storytelling, but also because my family is riddled with cancer so it's a very real issue in my life that's often treated very poorly and with very little respect in television, so I had to do something after 4.17. This is 90% me just trying to just not hate the whole development and to tie some things together from season four, and 10% just being a cynical arrogant asshole who doesn't expect even a show like this to pay the right amount of respect to an issue like cancer. So. Consider yourself warned.
> 
> Additionally: the sundry medical details in here regarding surgery and chemotherapy are based on my own experiences with surgery and my mother's and grandmothers' experiences with chemotherapy. It is obviously in no way indicative of anyone else's experience with any form of cancer or chemotherapy.
> 
> Also, I stole the title from Neko Case's "I'm An Animal". Let's not pretend I possess half an ounce's worth of her lyricism.

Breaking feels like this: feet melted to the floor, a gunshot in the distance, stomach wrenching in on itself as Sam’s body crumples like an empty soda can, screams too loud to be heard but not too loud to be felt as they rip out into open air.  It’s shock giving way to rage, rage giving way to loathing, and every one of them being utterly eclipsed by overwhelming, consuming failure.  It’s rebuilding, day by day, finding happiness in unexpected places and extraordinary people.

Breaking feels like this: waking up in a catacomb in Egypt, muscles aching and head pounding, betrayal hot on her skin like a blanket she can’t escape, hands shaking with fear and fury and desperation in a national park on the verge of explosion.  It’s disappointment and disgust and some deep-rooted miniscule seed of love squashed out with a gun to her head.  It’s finding forgiveness in herself, for everyone, and not shattering quite as completely as she did the first time.

Breaking feels like this: the scratchy upholstery of a suburban sofa, confusion giving way to frustration giving way to resignation, the warm handle of 150 year old brass pressed desperately into her hands in passing.  It’s walking away with a promise that will never be more than a goodbye and a quiet hole in her chest where someone brilliant once existed.  It’s smiling through the sadness and finding peace in an honest heartbreak.

Breaking feels like this: it’s being 31 years old going from _routine physical_ to _it might be cancer_ to _stage II_ in four days. It’s the utter devastation of something so _mundane_ , so separate from tridents and artifact bombs and the ache of unwanted devotion to someone who’s never found their place in the world, in any timeline.   It’s finally, somehow, cruelly, being _alone_ when every piece of herself that she’s glued back together splinters along the faultlines that never really faded. 

 

* * *

 

Step one, the doctors tell her after the diagnosis is confirmed, is surgery.  She walks out of the room, strides long and powerful and determinedly hiding the fact that her body is betraying her.  Her hand is on the door to her car—to go _where_ , she has no idea, but step one isn’t surgery, will never be surgery, because step one is her _family_ —when Mrs. Frederic is suddenly there.

“Not now,” Myka says.  Her voice is flat, her hands shaking as she fumbles with the door handle.

“Myka,” Mrs. Frederic says.  Her hand is cool on Myka’s shoulder.  Myka’s forehead falls against the window, breath coming in heavy gasps.  Mrs. Frederic guides her away from the car, leading her to another, and deposits her briskly in the backseat.

“So, you know already?” Myka says eventually, once her breathing is back under control.

“I do.”  Mrs. Frederic offers her a bottle of water. 

“Shocking,” Myka mutters.  “Where are you taking me?”

“That is up to you,” Mrs. Frederic says.  “I understand how difficult this is.  You can return to the bed and breakfast, or we can fly you to Colorado, or wherever you want to go.”

“Wherever I want to go,” Myka says.  Her fingers twist and untwist the bottle cap incessantly, her eyes watery but calculating.  “I know you like doing this whole mysterious thing, okay, but I’m really not in the mood for it, so if you would just spit it out—”

“A month-to-month lease was signed last week for an apartment in Boone, Wisconsin, to a Miss Emily Lake,” Mrs. Frederic says. 

“Oh,” Myka says faintly.  “No, I can’t—not like this.”

“Very well,” Mrs. Frederic says.  “The bed and breakfast, then?”

“I suppose so,” Myka says.  “I don’t—how do I tell them?”

“However you want to,” Mrs. Frederic says.  “This is about you, after all.”

 

* * *

 

 

Artie is first.  He curses and fumbles and his hands shake, and it’s barely two minutes before he’s trying to reach Vanessa on the Farnsworth, mumbling promises to Myka that everything will be okay.

Pete bursts into the office just as Artie reaches Vanessa, munching on a croissant, and skids to a halt to see Myka sitting in Artie’s chair, hands in her lap and shoulders folded in on themselves.

“Mykes, hey, what’s—”

“Can you sit down?” Her voice is weak, embarrassingly so, but she’s too tired to muster up any energy.  “I need to—I have—”

“What?” Pete sits in front of her cautiously.  “Come on, you’re freaking me out, I need you to talk to me.”

“It’s about my physical,” she starts.  “I—I didn’t want to say anything until I knew, and they had to run some tests, but they did and now they know and they got a second opinion and—” Her voices catches, stopping in a sharp hiccup somewhere between her stomach and her throat, and her eyes start to overflow.  “Pete, I have cancer.”

There’s a loud crash behind her before Pete can react.  Claudia is standing in the doorway, a now-broken laptop at her feet.  The stricken look—the same one from an empty hangar and Steve’s cold body— and the way her hand is covering her mouth and her entire body is recoiling from the words is enough to break past the remainders of Myka’s resolve, and she starts to cry.

Pete grabs her into an awkward hug, too-tight and painful, but she just cries into his shoulder. 

 

* * *

 

 

Her parents are even harder.  Her mother cries, her sister starts talking shrilly and uselessly, but her father simply stands up and walks away.  Her mother’s iron grip on her hands keeps Myka from following, and it isn’t until the middle of the night that she wakes up and finds him methodically pounding his fist into a concrete wall in the basement.

When she leaves for home—because Colorado hasn’t been home for years, because home is the middle of nowhere—his hand is in a cast and she hugs them all goodbye only after making them swear to let her go home and handle this—because _this_ is so much less threatening than _cancer_ , because _handle_ is so much less intimidating than _surgery_ and _chemotherapy_ —without them.

She hasn’t been a part of their lives for years, anyways.  It should hurt, leaving them, leaving her childhood home, for what could be the last time, but it doesn’t, not as much as she expected.  Cruelly, harshly, that hurts more than leaving.

 

* * *

 

In 31 years, the closest Myka Bering has ever had to surgery is getting her wisdom teeth and tonsils removed, and there’s nothing in those memories to prepare her.  There’s the pre-op and forms to sign, dates and times to coordinate, a bag to pack for the hospital stay afterwards.  There’s the stringent reminder not to eat or drink after midnight the night before, and gentle addendums that most people set an alarm for 11:45 and eat one last—the nurse bites down on her tongue when Pete’s hand clenches his empty coffee cup enough to crumple it at the word—meal and drink before the restriction sets in. 

There’s the prep room and needles in her arms, nurses bustling around and an anesthesiologist and so, so many papers to sign still.  There’s Pete and Claudia being almost forcibly lead away, and Myka digging her fingernails into her leg until she can fake a smile for them.  There’s being _alone_ in a flurry of people who are about to cut out the parts of her that are trying to kill her, a stranger tucking a cap over her hair, and the world blurring around the edges until there’s nothing left but the sharp, burning cold of the operating room.

Then there’s a mask and a backwards ten count.  She’s almost made it to seven when she drifts off wishing hazily for the same sky Helena had given her life over to once upon a time.

 

* * *

 

She wakes in the middle of the night.  Claudia is a blurry form curled into a recliner, dead asleep.  She’s snoring softly, and it mutes the edges of panic rising at the needles hooked into Myka’s arms, the ache in her throat, the ungodly _pain_ radiating through her entire abdomen.

A nurse slips into the room quietly, offering a smile. 

“Please don’t wake her,” Myka says, raspy and pained. 

“I don’t think an earthquake could wake her up,” she says.  She fiddles with a set of machines, all wired into some part of Myka’s body or another, and smiles once more.  “How’s your pain?”

Myka wants to say something clever, something funny, something that would get her a wink from Claudia and a high five from Pete, but all she can manage is “ _Bad_.”

“You’ve been out of surgery for about nine hours,” the nurse says.  “So the anesthesia is fading.  I have to keep doing rounds, but someone will be in in a minute to give you some pain medicine.”

Myka has nothing to offer but a tight smile.  Her body wants to curl in on itself, to wrap itself into a tiny compressed ball until her nerves stop working and it stops hurting, but instead she tries to focus on the slow, meditative breaths Steve taught her once. 

A phone buzzes, and Myka’s eyes snap open as Claudia jerks awake and yanks the phone out of her jacket pocket, murmuring a curse as she presses it to her ear.

“I swear to God, it’s two in the morning,” she hisses.  “What are you— _what_?”

“Claud,” Myka says, and Claudia’s eyes snap over towards her.

“Just a second,” she says fumbling to end the call and shifting her attention back to Myka, leaping out of her chair and over to the bedside.

“Hey,” Claudia says.  Her hands wring around one another.  “How—how are you feeling?”

“Okay,” Myka lies.  “A little thirsty.”

“Right,” Claudia says, fumbling for the water pitcher and pouring a cupful for her.  “The doctor said your throat might hurt for a few days because of—of the breathing tube.  Also, we were all here, but we got a ping and they had to, y’know.  We did rock paper scissors to see who got to stay.”

“Oh,” Myka says.  She takes a small sip, wincing when the lukewarm water hits her abused throat.  “Okay.  Do you have my glasses?”

“Oh, right, yes,” Claudia says.  She yanks her bag over, foot hooked in the strap, and produces Myka’s glasses with a flourish. 

“Thanks,” Myka says, closing her eyes as Claudia carefully places the glasses on her face.

“ Who were you talking to?” she asks once she can see.

“Uh—just Abigail.  She’s an insomniac.  Who knew?”

“Just because I’m on drugs doesn’t mean I can’t tell when you’re lying,” Myka says drolly, even as Claudia’s hand comes down to grip at hers.

“What?  No!”

Another nurse bustles into the room, a syringe in hand, and Claudia flinches at the sight, fingers tightening around Myka’s.

“What’s that?”

“Just morphine,” the nurse says.  “The anesthesia will wear off soon, it’s best to stay ahead of the pain.”

“I asked for it,” Myka says.  Her fingers grip weakly at Claudia’s, and Claudia’s shoulders relax minutely.

“Have you ever had a morphine injection before?”

Myka shakes her head, her throat hurting the more she speaks, and the nurses nods briskly.  “For some people, the morphine burns for a few minutes.  It’s nothing to worry yourself over, and it won’t last very long, but don’t freak out  about it, okay?”  Her eyes crinkle with a smile, and Myka nods, gripping at Claudia’s hand a little tighter.

The morphine slides through her veins, tracking up from the IV in her wrist towards her elbow and leaving a blurry line of reddened skin in its wake as it burns from the inside out. 

“The pain should go away within a few minutes,” the nurse says.  She checks the series of machines once more, and offers a last smile.  “Someone will be in for rounds in another hour or so.  Holler if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Claudia says belatedly, as the nurse is almost out of the room.  The door has barely swung shut behind her before it slips open again, and Claudia’s eyes widen.  “What are you—”

“What?” Myka says, drowsy and slurring.  Her head lolls towards the door, to where Helena—not Emily, but _Helena_ , the difference palatable—stands apprehensively.  “Oh.”  She swings her gaze back over to Claudia.  “Knew you were lying.”

“To be fair, I did surprise her,” Helena says softly.  There’s not a trace of humor in her eyes, her mouth set in a thin line.

“I called her yesterday,” Claudia says.  “I—I just wanted her to know, I thought she should be up to date.”

“Oh,” Myka says.  Helena stands at her bedside, opposite Claudia, looking down at Myka solemnly.

“I’m going to—go to the vending machine,” Claudia says.  She presses a kiss to Myka’s cheek and waves awkwardly at Helena before disappearing out of the room.

“Why are you here?” Myka mumbles.  Helena’s hand covers hers, fingertips following the fading red burn up her arm. 

“For you,” Helena says simply.

“Oh,” Myka says, faint as she drifts into sleep.  “Okay.  Good.  I think I’m high.”

“Sleep,” Helena says.  Her hand presses against Myka’s cheek for a brief moment, trembling but real, and Myka sighs into the touch.

“You’ll be here when I wake up?”

“Of course,” Helena says.  “Right here.”  She hooks a foot into a chair and slides it over so she can sit, not letting go of Myka’s hand.

“Okay,” Myka mumbles.  Her eyes slip shut, but Helena’s touch burns through the fog of the morphine, warm and strong.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same disclaimers regarding cancer treatments as in the previous chapter: the sundry details in here regarding chemotherapy are based on my mother's and grandmothers' experiences with chemotherapy. It is obviously in no way indicative of anyone else's experience with any form of cancer or chemotherapy and is not intended to be.

Helena is moved into one of the empty bedrooms at the bed and breakfast when Myka comes home from the hospital, but every odd hour of the night when Myka wakes up, Helena is reading or writing or sleeping, curled up in the recliner in the corner of Myka’s room.  They never talk, necessarily, but she’s there and it’s a start, and Myka sleeps through a little more of the pain and nausea with her there. 

The morning of her first chemotherapy treatment, Helena quietly hands her a worn leather notebook filled with pages and pages of handwriting.  Myka doesn’t open it until she’s settled into her chair at the hospital, IVs plugged into the port in her chest and other patients murmuring quietly around her.  Helena’s familiar handwriting flows across the page, elegant and careful, weaving together into an adventure of a mischievous inventor.  Myka reads the short story three times, sinking far enough into the fiction that the nurse has to shake her shoulder after the treatment ends to get her attention.

The steroids they gave her to stave off the chemo reactions make her twitchy.  She slips Helena’s book into her purse carefully to protect it from her jittery hands.  Pete is waiting for her, fidgeting anxiously in front of the car, and Myka laughs at how neither of them can sit still.

“What’s so funny?  How are you—was it okay?  Do you feel sick?” He opens the car door for her, one hand hovering nervously at her back as she climbs in, and she giggles.

“I’m okay,” she says.  “They said I shouldn’t feel sick for a while.”

“How long is a while?”

“Tonight or tomorrow,” she says.  She reaches out, fiddles with the radio; Pete grimaces when she skips past the rock station and settles on classical.

“Small favors,” he mutters.  “So, Claud and HG have something for you when you get home.”

“Say what?”

“You’ll see,” he says with a smile.  “And just because you’re sick doesn’t mean you get to change my music.”

“Pete.”

“Myka.”  He sticks his tongue out and slaps her hand away from the radio, shifting it back to Led Zeppelin.  “Behave, or it’s _Immigrant Song_ on repeat all the way home.”

“You suck,” she says, smiling anyways.  He simply turns the volume up and starts singing along.

At home, Claudia bounces down the stairs, false energy failing to hide her nervousness.  Her hands hover at Myka’s sides, words chattering out too quickly to be understood.

“Claudia, darling, calm down,” Helena says from her spot at the base of the stairs.  Her eyes are locked onto Myka’s, her gaze cautious and curious, and Myka ventures a smile her way.

“Right,” Claudia says.  She zips a hand across her mouth.  “Turning it down a notch.”

“Claud, you have something to show her, right?” Pete says, tilting his head towards the stairwell.

“Right!” Claudia says again.  “Come on, come on, upstairs.  You’re good for stairs, right?  Do you want Steve to carry you?”

“Hey, I can carry people,” Pete says petulantly.  “I’m not _that_ old.”

“I don’t need to be carried,” Myka says.  “I’m fine right now.”

“Okay, awesome, fabulous, up you go then,” Claudia says, darting around behind her and propelling her towards the stairs with firm hands on her back.  Helena smiles, stepping to the side to give Myka room to pass, and Myka smiles weakly in return.

“And…tada!” Claudia says, opening Myka’s bedroom door with a flourish.  Across from her bed, mounted on the wall, is a giant TV.

“A TV?”

“Okay, one, not just a TV,” Claudia says.  “An _awesome_ TV.  But also _these_.”  She kicks open a trunk sitting under the TV to reveal stacks upon stacks of DVDs.  “Every critically acclaimed movie and TV show in the history of ever, even before Artie was born.  And books on tape, which are really on DVD now, but whatever, you can put them in and listen on the speakers.”

“Pete has been insisting I catch up on popular culture,” Helena ventures.  She hovers in the doorway, fingers twisting around one another.  “I was hoping you might be willing to go through it with me.”

“I offered, but apparently she doesn’t like my way of explaining things,” Pete says from behind her, disgruntled.

“That’s because you’re incapable of keeping your mouth shut for more than four minutes at a time,” Claudia says.  “Not the point though, guys, come on.  Mykes, we just wanted to make sure you were comfortable all through the—through chemo and everything, and have something to do—”

“When you aren’t doing your research thing,” Pete interrupts.  “Since you’re obviously going to make Artie let you do _something_ while you’re sitting around on your butt.”

Myka smiles in spite of herself, chest heavy at his words and how well he knew her.

“This is great, guys,” she says, sitting down on the edge of her bed and smiling up at them.

“It was all Helena’s idea,” Claudia says with a smirk.  “I encrypted your laptop so you could access the warehouse system from here for research, Pete found all the movies and Steve had veto power over his weird tastes and found the books on tape, Artie provided the moolah to buy it all.”

Helena ducked her head, uncharacteristically humble.  Pete elbowed her in the back and beckoned to Claudia.  “Why don’t we go see what kind of trouble Artie’s getting into, yeah?”

“Right, yes, good,” Claudia says.  She pauses, turning back and hugging Myka tightly. 

“It’s going to be alright,” Myka says into her shoulder, holding her just as tightly. 

“Promise?”

“Promise,” Myka says.  She clenches her jaw, pulling Claudia closer and willing truth into the words. 

Claudia steps back after a long few seconds, sniffling only the tiniest bit before waving at Myka and Helena and ducking out with Pete and leaving the two of them alone.  Myka picks at a thread on her comforter, eyes locked on her knees, unable to find anything to say.

“So,” Helena says.  “Would you like to try a film?”

“Not right now,” Myka says, quiet and uncertain.  “I just—I think I have too much on my mind for a movie right now.”

“Of course,” Helena says.  She steps hesitantly into the room, stopping by the trunk and staring down at the stacks of movies.  “Perhaps tomorrow, after we’ve formulated a plan of attack.  We could go chronologically, or by genre, or—of course, that is, only if you actually want to—”

“You wrote me a story,” Myka says abruptly.  Helena’s teeth clack together audibly as her mouth shuts, and her fingers twist around each other once more.

“I—yes,” she says.  “I spoke to Pete and he said you hadn’t started anything new recently, and that you would be in the treatment for a while, so I just thought—”

“You _wrote_ me something,” Myka says again, staring up at her.  “When was the last time you wrote any fiction?”

“1891,” Helena says.  Her hand presses down over the locket on her chest. 

“1891…that was before—”

“It was, yes,” Helena says.  “Before Christina’s death, I fictionalized many of my inventions.  It was something of a hobby, you might say.  Afterwards, though I did my best to put on a good face, I lost interest in such frivolity and left Charles to reap the benefits of my creativity.”

“But you wrote something for me,” Myka says, quiet and bemused.  “Why?”

“Quite simply, Myka, you’re the only thing that has mattered enough to make me care again.”

“Oh,” Myka says faintly.  “But—in Wisconsin, you said—”

“Wisconsin was me being a bloody idiot,” Helena says, rolling her eyes.  “We both know that, yes?  It’s not the stupidest thing I’ve ever done but it’s certainly close.”

Myka smiles, shaking her head.  She shifts back onto the bed more fully, sitting cross-legged and leaving space for Helena to sit.  “What about Adelaide?”

“Adelaide was— _is_ an extraordinary child,” Helena says, taking the offered seat.  “But she is not my daughter, and while I still care for her, I was doing no one any favors by lying constantly.  She and Nate deserve someone honest and kind, and I had no place in that role.”

“How did she take it?”

“Well enough, I suppose,” Helena says heavily.  “She wasn’t happy, but I think she understood that it was for the best.”

“And Nate?”

Helena winced.  “He was a little less understanding.  If I had left right after—when you and Pete did, then perhaps he would have been more amenable to it, but by waiting and allowing him to become comfortable with me again…I made another mistake.”

“I’m glad you came,” Myka says.  “I guess that makes me selfish, but—I am.  I’m glad you’re here.”

“I want to be here for you,” Helena says firmly.  “In any capacity possible, for anything you need.”

“Just be here,” Myka says.  “Don’t—don’t leave again.  Please.”

Helana’s hand finally drops from her locket, coming to rest on Myka’s knee.  “Of course,” she says, her free hand pressing against Myka’s cheek. 

“It’s not going to be fun,” Myka says.  Exhaustion edges into her voice, and she slumps tiredly, eyes watering in spite of her determination to stay strong for her family.  “It just—I’m _sick_ and it’s going to be hard and I’m going to be gross—”

“Oh, please,” Helena scoffs.  “I greatly doubt that.”

“It’s chemotherapy, Helena,” Myka says.  “There’s nothing dignified about it.”

“If anyone could find dignity in the least likely of places,” Helena says, firm and without room for argument.  “It’s you, Agent Bering.”

“How much do you actually know about chemotherapy?” Myka raises her eyebrows, arms wrapping around her stomach.

“Almost as much as I know about time travel, at this point,” Helena throws back with a smirk.  “I’m really quite good at research, as you seem to have forgotten.”

“It’s going to be bad,” Myka says, quiet and resigned.  She shrinks in on herself, curling up against the pillows at the head of her bed.

“Then it will be bad,” Helena says.  “And we will all be here to help you through it.”

“You promise?” Myka hasn’t sounded so feeble since—ever, that she can recall—and she curls even tighter around herself.  The port in her chest still aches under its bandage, and her fingers twitch, wanting to yank it out.

“I do,” Helena confirms.  “And I’m rather confident that I can speak for everyone else here when I say they will be here, too.”

Myka stares at her, level and unabashed, taking in the confident lines of her face.  “Can I have another story for my next treatment?”

“Certainly,” Helena says, smirking.  “It’s already written.”

“I missed that,” Myka says, abrupt and unintended.  “How cocky you are.  Wisconsin wasn’t—you weren’t—”

“Myself,” Helena finishes for her.  Her smirk softens to a smile, head tilting to the side.

“Yeah,” Myka murmurs.  She takes a deep breath, pushing her hair back.  “So, movie?”

“Righty ho,” Helena says cheerfully.  She hops off the bed and delves into the trunk, resurfacing with a still-shrinkwrapped copy of _Kiss Me Kate_.

Myka smiles crookedly; it had to be Steve’s input that put that movie into the mix.  “Definitely,” she says.  She settles back against the pillows facing the TV and watches as Helena fumbles with the BluRay player. 

Downstairs, the sound of Pete and Claudia bickering with Abigail and Artie floats over the quiet clink of dishes in the kitchen directly below her room as Steve prepares dinner.  Helena’s quiet curses and frustration melds in with the quiet din.  Hours later, when Myka lurches out of bed in the middle of the night, barely making it to the bathroom before retching as the chemotherapy starts to really hit, it’s she soft sound of her family—cooking, arguing, _being_ —that she focuses on.


	3. Chapter 3

The nausea lasts for four days.  On the fifth day, Myka wakes up sometime around noon, mouth cottony and stomach empty.  There’s a bottle of water on her nightstand and a note in Claudia’s familiar scrawl—Pete and Claudia are off on a ping, Artie is handling the crisis of the week in the dark vault with Abigail, and Helena was called in on some gadgety thing, leaving Steve to work on his paperwork at home.

She’s in the shower, the first she’s managed in days, when chunks of hair fall down with the water, dropping at her feet mockingly.  She doesn’t move, staring at the lock of hair by her big toe, and her hands shake. 

Fifteen minutes later, she makes her way downstairs.  Steve is in the dining room, paperwork spread out across the table.

“Feel like taking a break?” she says, false cheer. “I need to go into town.”

“Hey!” he says, fumbling with his pen and struggling to get to his feet without disrupting the stack of file folders.  “What—how are you feeling?”

“Oh, you know,” she says breezily.  “Like I spent four days puking up my guts.  Come on, let’s go into town.”

“Myka, wait, hold on, you need to—”

“I swear to God, Steve, if you say I need to sit down, I will shoot you.”

“Okay, one.”  He holds his hands out peacefully.  “That was a lie.  We both know you’d punch me.  And two, I was just going to say you should _eat_ , since you haven’t kept anything down since Tuesday.”

“Oh.”  Her shoulders slump.  “Okay.”

“Okay,” he echoes with a smile.  “The kitchen is yours.  What do you want?  I can make anything that isn’t pound cake.”

“Pound cake.  Really?”

“I know, trust me,” he says, grumbling.  “It just _never_ works, I don’t know what goes wrong, but something always goes wrong and it tastes like salt.”

“Salt?”

“I don’t know!”  He yanks the refrigerator door open.  “Anyways.  We have leftover shephard’s pie from yesterday, Pete’s steak burrito that no one is supposed to touch, and any sandwich you could dream of.”

“Burrito,” Myka says. 

“Burrito it is,” he says, producing it with a flourish and handing it to her.  “Water?  Tea?  Sprite?”

“I’m good.”  She shakes the water bottle from upstairs, shoving it back into her purse.  “Drive and eat?”

“I’ll drive, you eat,” he says.  “So what do you need in town?”

“I—uh…” Myka falters, steps slowing for a brief second, and she busies herself with unwrapping the burrito.  “Just a quick errand.”

“Mysterious,” Steve says.  “Is this where Claudia gets it from?”

“Please,” she says with a laugh.  “Claudia’s personality quirks are 100% Claudia.”

“I don’t know, I’m pretty sure she has your death glare and Pete’s appetite,” he says. 

“Anyways,” she says.  “Fill me in, what’s going on?”

“Artie is being all hush-hush about something going on in the dark vault, but Abigail let it slip that they’re basically just doing inventory and he’s avoiding everyone because Pete is bouncing off the walls without you and Helena and Claudia keep taking things apart, including the F.I.S.H., which Helena is currently putting back together and supposedly improving.  Pete and Claudia are in Ohio, tracking down a ping of a bunch of people who keep thinking they can fly.”

“Ohio?”

“Orville Wright’s hat, I think?”

“Oh, right.”  Myka munches on the burrito in silence for a few moments.  It sits heavily in her stomach, and she only makes it through a third before wrapping it back up.  Steve glances at her worriedly, and she ignores him, staring resolutely at the passing lack of scenery on their way into Univille.

“Where to, then?” Steve asks when they make it to town.

“Just the general store,” she says quietly.  He pulls into a parking spot in front of the store, and she motions for him to stay.  “Won’t be a minute.”

It takes more than a minute, though.  She stands in the aisle for long minutes, a box containing a set of hair clippers clenched in her hands.  It isn’t until someone tries to edge past her in the aisle, accidentally bumping into her, that she finally moves, striding to the desk and slapping the box down to check out.

“Get what you—oh.”

“Yeah,” Myka mutters. 

“I—”

“Don’t,” she says.

“—have a pair already,” he finishes.  “You could have borrowed them.”

“Oh,” she says.  He smiles, rubbing a hand over his nearly-shaved head, and she laughs tiredly.  “I kind of want to symbolically smash these against a rock, though.”

“Well, in that case,” he says.  “Don’t touch mine.”

“I promise.”  She sinks into the passenger seat as he starts back towards the bed and breakfast.  He’s quiet and comforting in the driver’s seat, turning the radio to a jazz station and letting the music fill the silence on the drive home.

 

* * *

 

 

Pete and Claudia come home just after Artie and Abigail shuffle into the bed and breakfast, Helena trailing behind them with her head bowed over some kind of circuit board in her hands.

“Myka!” Claudia says, bouncing excitedly.  “You’re up!”  She leaps forward, only to slam to a halt six inches away.  “Can I—”

Over her shoulder, Pete is watching apprehensively, and Myka wrinkles her nose at him.  “Guys, I’m not going to break.”

“Oh, sweet,” Claudia says, barreling into her and hugging her tightly.  Myka laughs, hugging her back, and Pete grins, grabbing them both into a hug and squashing Claudia between them.

“Children!” Artie says abruptly from the kitchen.  “It’s dinner time, come on, I’m hungry.”

“Alright, alright, keep your hair on, gramps,” Claudia wheezes from her spot between them.  “Guys, let me out, I can’t breathe, Pete is wearing too much cologne.”

She squeezes out from between them and darts to the freedom of the kitchen.  Behind Pete, Helena catches Myka’s eye and smiles gently, head tilting to one side the tiniest bit.  Myka swallows, her throat dry, and steps back from Pete.

“After dinner, can I talk to you?” she asks him quietly.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“I just need your help with something.  It won’t take long.”

“Does it involve bedpans?” he asks.  “Because I don’t do bedpans.”

She punches him in the arm, and it’s far weaker than she cares to admit, but he winces for her sake anyways and she loves him just a little bit more for it.  “No bedpans,” she promises.

“Cool, I’m there.”  He salutes her and winks before making his own way ot the kitchen.

“It’s good to see you up,” Helena says quietly  The circuit  board is abandoned in her hands.

“What are you working on?”

“I believe at one point it was a cell phone,” Helena says, smiling widely.  “It had quite the marvelous tracking device embedded in it at one point, I believe, and I’m trying to replicate it.”

“Guys! Come on, Artie sounds like a dying whale in here.”

Myka shakes her head, laughing in spite of herself, and Helena tucks the circuit board into her jacket pocket.  She follows Myka into the dining room and pulls out a chair for her, smirking when Myka flushes delicately at the gesture, the color obvious against her pale cheeks.  Her hand presses against the back of Myka’s neck delicately for a fleeting moment, cool and comforting, before she moves to her own seat at Abigail’s side.

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re sure about this?” Pete asks.  He looks doubtfully at the clippers in his hands, gaze wavering between them and Myka.

“Pete, yes, for the last time,” she says.  She rolls her eyes and tugs at her hair, a chunk coming out in her hand.

“Ah! Oh my God!” He leaps back, scrambling up onto the counter as it floats down towards his feet.

“Oh, come on,” she says, glaring at him.  “It’s _hair_ , it won’t hurt you.  It’s not like cancer is contagious, and even if it was, you’d be lacking some fundamental parts necessary for this kind of cancer.”

“Oh,” he says.  “Well, when you put it that way.”  He takes a deep breath.  “Okay, here we go.”

The clippers buzz to life, and Myka clenches her jaw, squeezing her eyes shut and steeling herself for the first pass of the razor through her hair.  His hands are gentle as they manipulate the clippers, and hers migrate from her lap down to skim past her legs and behind her, fingers gripping at the loose denim around his shins just for the sake of contact as he haves her head. 

In spite of her resolve, a few tears slip free anyways.  She clamps down on her lower lip, ignoring them, and keeps her eyes shut until cool air is brushing over her entire scalp and Pete turns the clippers off.

“Thank you for not sucking at this,” she says once her eyes are open.  Her head is pale, paler even than the rest of her, and her fingers shake as she slides her hands over her scalp. 

“You have a nice shaped head,” Pete says, squinting.  “When they cut off my hair in the Marines I found out I have this really weird lump on the back of my skull, I looked like a deformed conehead.”

“You’re surprised that my bald head is prettier than your bald head?”

“A little, yeah,” he says.  He shrugs, grinning at her.  “That big brain of yours, I was convinced all of that crazy curly hair was just disguising a crazy big head, too.”

She laughs, the sound coming out halfway to a sob, and elbows him weekly in the stomach.  His hand catches hers and squeezes tightly.  She slumps back against him, temple pressing into the soft material of his t-shirt, and cries in spite of herself.

“Do you have a—a hat or something?”

“Yeah, probably.”  He deposits the clippers on the counter and shifts, hands solid on her shoulders as he kneels down on the floor beside her and hugs her tightly.  “You look awesome bald, Mykes.  Not a conehead at all.  And you’re going to beat the crap out of this cancer, because you’re Myka and your’e awesome.”

Her fingers dig into his t-shirt, face buried against his shoulder, and he doesn’t move until she does, long minutes having passed.  His shirt is wrinkled and damp from her tears, but he just smiles broadly at her and leaps to his feet theatrically, disappearing into his room. 

“Okay, we have hats,” he say.  “Jester hat.  Trucker hat.  Stolen cap from the corp—don’t tell them about that.  Toboggan.  Beanie.  Another trucker hat.  Fedora.  Hey, you should totally wear the fedora.”

He pops his head back around the corner, brandishing a gray fedora.

“No fedoras,” she says sternly.

“Right.”  He disappears again.  “How about—here.”  He reappears, a dark blue beanie in his hands.  “It shrank the last time I washed it, but it should still fit over your big brain.”

She slips the hat over her head, the worn material soft over her sensitive skin.  It fits down over her ears and covers down to the top of her neck, just enough that she could be hiding a full head of hair under it without being grossly hot.

“This works,” she says quietly.  She avoids her own image in the mirror.  “Thank you.”

“What’s a little head-shaving between friends who have woken up naked with each other?” he says with a smirk.  “Now come on, your TV is super cool and I want to watch _McLintock!_ on it.”

“John Wayne again?  Really, Pete?”

“Forget about Wayne,” Pete says flippantly, dragging her towards her room.  “It’s all about Maureen O’Hara.  You know what they say about redheads.”

“What’s that, exactly?” Claudia calls from her bedroom.  “Before you answer, remember exactly who keeps the Pete Cave from getting demolished by Artie.”

“Ah,” Pete says.  “That they’re…all extremely smart and terrifying?”

“Who’s smart and terrifying?” Helena appears at the top of the stairs, eyes shifting to Myka immediately.  Myka shrinks into Pete’s side, her hands going to the hat self-consciously.  She slips behind Pete and into her room, leaving him to argue with Claudia.

“Myka,” Helena says softly, shutting the door behind her.  “Are you alright?”

Myka drops down on the foot of her bed, shaking her head helplessly.  Helena moves swiftly to her side, her leg pressing gently against Myka’s as she sits.   

“In several instances of my research, I read about family members who, in a symbol of solidarity for those going through chemotherapy, also shaved their heads—”

“Don’t you _dare_!” Myka interrupts.  Her fingers tug at the tips of Helena’s hair.  “Don’t even think about it.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s not even an option,” Myka says firmly.  “No way.”

“Well, the offer stands.  It would be something of an adventure,” Helena says.  Her thumb skims along Myka’s cheekbone.  Even after only a week, it’s more pronounced than normal.  “Now, are you up for another movie tonight?”

“I had one in mind, actually,” Myka says with a small smile.  She detaches herself from Helena, fingers trailing through her hair as she steps away.  After a moment of rummaging in the trunk, she produces a movie and tosses it to Helena, whose face lights up.

“Oh, my, they made a movie out of this?”

“They did,” Myka says, swallowing a smirk as Helena’s bright expression traces over _War of the_ Worlds and Tom Cruise’s face.

“This is rather wondrous,” Helena says.  “Also, I believe I’ve gotten the hang of this fantastic contraption.”  She slides past Myka, managing to deposit the disc into the player with much less effort than the first time.  Myka curls under the covers on the bed, and Helena joins her as the movie starts. 

Myka settles in, eyes locked on Helena as the movie progresses.  It takes barely five minutes before Helena is raging at the movie, and Myka just watches, laughing hard enough to forget that half an hour earlier she had her best friend cut off all of her hair. 

“I can’t do this,” Helena declares halfway through.  “This is—it’s not just a travesty, it’s a tragedy, and an insult.  I’m going to track down whoever let this happen and—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Myka says with a yawn.  She yanks Helena back down from where she’s pacing and fumbles with the remote, turning the TV off.

“It’s all _wrong_ , Myka,” Helena says petulantly. 

“Calm down,” Myka says, yawning again.  “You can laugh or you can cry.  I suggest laughing.”

Her yawn catches Helena’s attention, drawing a small smile from her.  “Perhaps you should sleep, darling,” she suggests.

“Maybe,” Myka mumbles.  She slips down on the bed sleepily, tugging the covers up to her shoulders.

“Probably,” Helena says.  She fidgets with the blankets, pulling them more fully over her.  Her hands pause by Myka’s shoulders, fingertips brushing against the material of her hat.  “Do you want to take that off?”

“No!” Myka says, eyes snapping open.  “No, I just—not yet.”

“Alright,” Helena says quietly.  Her fingers smooth over the hat once, and Myka yawns again.  “Sleep well, then.”

“Night,” Myka says, half-asleep.  Her fingertips catch Helena’s before they drift away, tangling together.  Helena says something, quiet and kind, as Myka slides the rest of the way into sleep.  The last thing she hears is Helena settling into the chair at her bedside, fingers on one hand still caught between hers while her other hand flips open a familiar leather notebook and sets to writing.


	4. Chapter 4

 

Four treatments and eight weeks pass, and the skin under Myka’s eyes darkens as the rest of her face pales.  Bruises pinpoint her arms and legs, appearing at random and melding into one another.  Her body thins from healthy to thin to gaunt as days upon days pass without her stomach strong enough to hold food down, and her skin stretches tight over the protrusions of her wrists, her shoulders, her hips.  A pattern emerges from treatment to treatment, and Myka grits her teeth for the day of steroid-induced hyperactivity, the five days of vomiting, the two days of fatigue, just to make it to a glorious week’s worth of something passing for normalcy before the next dose of chemotherapy.

Five treatments and ten weeks pass, and she breaks her arm.  It’s been four days since her last treatment, and she’s pale and pathetic and tired of being pale and pathetic, so she levels Pete and Claudia and Steve with a glare when they hesitate at going on a ping, shoos Helena out of the room, and heads into the shower.  She hasn’t even made it out of her pajamas and into the shower before her body rebels at being upright and she retches, her empty stomach heaving; her legs give way and she collapses, her right arm cracking audibly when she lands on it.

Helena is in the room before Myka can even register anything beyond the fresh wave of nausea—it’s a different kind of queasy, her body reacting to _pain_ and a broken bone instead of a Cisplatin wrecking ball steamrolling her health from the inside out— and the white spots in her vision. 

“Oh, Myka,” Helena mutters, dropping down by her side and helping her sit up.  Myka whimpers in spite of herself when her arm shifts, and she bites down on her bottom lip stubbornly.

“I’m okay,” she says.  “I just slipped.”

“Bullshit,” Helena says.  Her eyebrow arches, and her fingertips slip gently along Myka’s forearm, hovering over an unnatural dip.  “I think it’s broken.  You need to go to the hospital.”

“I’m going to kill Pete for teaching you that word,” Myka says.  Her voice is tight, her eyes screwed shut.  “I don’t need to go to the hospital, I can ice it and it’ll be okay.”

“Myka, darling, don’t be an idiot,” Helena says sternly.  “You’re going to the hospital.”

“I hate you,” Myka grumbles.

“I certainly hope not,” Helena says.  She tugs a towel off of the rack on the wall and folds it under Myka’s wrist, propping it up carefully.  Myka sucks in a sharp breath at the movement, her vision going white until she narrows her focus determinedly on the feel of Helena’s cool hand pressing carefully against her shoulder.

Helena’s phone is pressed against her ear as she speaks to a 911 operator, but the words are little more than a faint hum to Myka.  She slumps back against the wall, her head tipping over to press against Helena’s shoulder. 

“The ambulance will be here in five minutes,” Helena says softly, the words pressing against Myka’s temple.  “Can you make it downstairs on your own?  The operator says that the paramedics can carry you out on a stretcher, or I could—”

“If you’re about to say that you could carry me, please don’t,” Myka says.  “I like to pretend I still have some semblance of pride left.”

“Of course,” Helena says with a smile.  “Up we go, then?”  She guides Myka to her feet carefully, an arm secure around her waist.  The sound of Helena’s boots on the tile flooring rattles painfully in Myka’s ears.

“I’m so tired,” she says unintentionally as they reach the landing in the stairs halfway down to the main floor. 

Helena freezes, arm still tight around her waist.   “We can wait here,” she says.  “I—”

“No, not that,” Myka says.  “I’m just _tired_ , Helena, I’m so tired of this.”

“I can’t even imagine.” Helena’s voice is soft and strained, and her free hand grips so tightly to the stairwell railing that the wood creaks.  “But you’ve only a few more treatments left, and you’re doing so well—”

“Am I?” Myka barks out a laugh.  “I can’t eat for a week at a time, I’m completely useless for any kind of real work, I can’t even take a shower without wrecking everyone’s day.  How is that doing _well_?”

“Because you’re still trying,” Helena says.  Her arm slips from Myka’s waist as she steps in front of her, a frustration written into her tense jawline.  “You’re going through a hell that none of us can imagine, but you’re still _fighting_ to work, and to research, and to help.”

“It’s not enough,” Myka says.  Her is cradled against her chest, her shoulders slumping downwards, and she shakes her head angrily.  “I’m useless.”

Helena scoffs.  Her hands drops from Myka’s body and she shifts up onto the first step towards the second floor, hands on her hips.

“What are—”

“Maybe if I’m looking _down_ at you like I have some authority you’ll listen,” Helena says tartly.  “Myka Ophelia Bering, you are an agent of the Secret Service and, more importantly, an agent of this warehouse.  You are smart, and strong, and talented, and dedicated, and your time doing research in the past months has been more useful than even Artie’s contributions in the same field because, loathe as anyone but me may be to say it, you’re smarter and more intuitive than he is.  So, if you would be so kind once we return from the hospital, please get off of your own cross and allow us to get back to solving puzzles and saving the day with our considerable combined wit.”

Myka stares at her, eyes wide in her pale face.  “Get off my cross?” she repeats.  “That’s what you’re going with?”

“It worked on me once,” Helena says, softening slightly.  “We’re more similar than you seem to realize.”  She reaches out, thumb skimming along the pronounced ridge of Myka’s cheekbone.  “I know it’s hard, but you are stronger than this cancer, than the chemotherapy, than all of it.”

“I don’t know why you believe in me,” Myka mumbles.

“You know me,” Helena says with a smirk.  “I’ve never been one for blind faith.  My statements are based purely on observation.”   She leans closer, hand still curved around Myka’s jaw, and smirks. 

“I like being taller than you for once,” she says.  “It makes this doing this more fun.”

“What—”  Myka is cut off when Helena kisses her, short and soft.  “Oh.”

Helena smiles as the sound of a siren drifts down the driveway.  “I think your cavalry has arrived.”

“You just kissed me,” Myka says.  Her head reels, as much from Helena as from the pain in her arm and the weakness of her body.  “You kissed me _now_ , when I’m in the middle of chemo and just broke my arm and—“

Helena kisses her delicately once more.  “Yes,” she says.  “Once upon I time I told myself that after all I had done, I should wait for you to take the first step, but circumstances changed and I’ve come to the conclusion that patience is overrated.”

“Oh,” Myka says faintly.  The first dusting of color in weeks rises in her cheeks, and Helena smiles broadly.  “Okay.”

“And on that note,” Helena says brightly.  She presses a kiss to Myka’s forehead and slips down onto the landing with her.  The paramedics knock on the door, and Helena calls them in.  “I believe your carriage awaits.”

“It’s not a carriage,” Myka says, but allows Helena to lead her down the stairs anyways. 

“Close enough,” Helena says.  “Hello, boys, good to see you.”

The paramedics are young and fluster under Helena’s charm.  Myka rolls her eyes as Helena rattles off Myka’s medical information on their way to the hospital and the paramedic in the back with them has to ask her to repeat it so he can copy it all down.

They’re separated once they make it to the hospital, Helena guided over to a waiting area as Myka is taken into a treatment room.  She’s sedated quickly enough, and the last thing she notices is Helena’s figure through the half-open door, tense and leaning towards Myka.

 

* * *

 

When she wakes, Pete is sprawled in a chair at her bedside, feet propped up next to hers and a comic book on his chest as he sleeps.  Her arm is covered under the blanket and propped atop a pillow at her side, the pain dulled to a subtle ache.  A curtain hides them from the quiet bustle of the rest of the ward.

“Pete,” she says.  He doesn’t move an inch.  “Pete!”  She punches his shoulder weakly, and he jerks awake.

“Hi!” he says, too loud in the empty room.  “Hey!  Mykes, hey, how are you?”

“You were drooling,” she informs him.  She points at the corner of his mouth, and he scrubs at his face.

“Good to see you, too,” he says, grumbling. 

“Did you and Steve—”

“Snagged, bagged, tagged, and in record time too, I might add,” he says, tipping an imaginary hat towards her.  “Though you had to go and upstage us by breaking your arm.”

She sighs, looking down at her arm.  “Is it bad?”

“Not terribly,” he says.  “They plated it, just to be safe, I think, but you should be out of the cast in six weeks or so.”

“Great,” she mutters.  “One more thing to look out for on my long list of things to look out for.”

“At least you have a cool cast now to go with your cool drain plug?”

“It’s not a _plug_ , Pete,” she says crossly.  “It’s a port and it’s sure as hell coming out as soon as possible.”  She pauses, looking skeptically his way.  “What do you mean, a cool cast?”

“Well, you were still drowsy, and I’m still your medical proxy—Artie _hates_ that by the way, almost as much as HG—so I got to make the choice of color—”

“Pete, I swear to God,” she huffs out, yanking at the blanket over her arm.  Bright, glowing orange plaster glares up at her. “Oh my God, I’m going to kill you.”

“My arm looks like a traffic cone!”

“An _awesome_ traffic cone,” he says.  “Come on, Mykes, it’s just a cast.”  He smiles up at her, wide and unrestrained, and it tugs at he anger.

“I hate you,” she grumbles.  “I can’t believe this.  I can’t believe they let you do this.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, HG tried to stop me.”

“But you didn’t listen to her!”

“ _I’m_ the medical proxy, Mykes, I get to make important decisions.”

“I should switch it over to her,” Myka says, head flopping back against the pillow.  “Where is everyone else?”

“Steve is at the warehouse with Abigail, doing the paperwork from our record-breaking snag bag and tag, Claudia and Artie went out on a ping, and HG, who you’re actually asking about, is helping Mrs. Frederic with some warehouse 12 paperwork snafu.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Oh, come on, Myka,” Pete says with a grin.  “Of course you were asking about her.  I’m not blind, you know.”

“It’s nothing,” Myka says unconvincingly.

“If by _nothing_ you mean _gratuitous sexual tension_ , then yes, it’s definitely nothing,” Pete deadpans.

A doctor yanks the curtain back, stepping over to Myka’s bedside and cutting off her retort.  He starts rambling about casts and plates and how her oncologist had come to check on her while she was still out after the surgery and she should still be in for her next chemo treatments; Pete settles back into his chair, smirking in the background and making kissing faces at Myka.

She throws the pillow under her broken arm at him.  It hurts when her arms shifts, but is worth it when it hits Pete in the face, as much for his spluttering as for the doctor’s surprise.  She smirks, genuine and arrogant, for the first time in what feels like months, and redirects her attention back to the doctor.


	5. Chapter 5

 

It’s late when Myka and Pete make it back home, the sun long set under the horizon.  The bed and breakfast is quiet, save for Pete’s quiet footsteps at her side, and Myka yawns in spite of herself.

She follows Pete up the stairs, glaring at him until he goes first because she refuses to be followed protectively like an invalid.  Her feet falter for only a split second on the landing halfway up before she continues after Pete, making her way up to her room.  Unbidden, her eyes drift down the hall towards the quietly shut door to Helena’s room.

“She’s off with Ms. F,” Pete says quietly.  “Claudia texted me, they have a thing back in England to deal with.  She didn’t’ want to wake you.”

“Right,” Myka says.  “Of course.”  She forces a smile across her face.  “Night.”

“G’night,” Pete mutters, not moving as she slips into her room. 

“Myka,” he says abruptly, as the door is about to shut.  “Just—let me know if you need anything, okay?  And HG should be back tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Mya says softly.  “Really.”

“Anytime,” he says, quiet and earnest, and she shuts the door on her own smiles gently. 

It takes two hours for Myka to fall asleep.  The left edge of her mattress feels cool and too far away without the subtle weight of Helena’s hand drifting over the side to distract from her nausea, her vertigo, her aching arm.

 

* * *

 

Myka wakes to the quiet clink of a glass settling on her bedside table.  Her eyes blinks open and take in an apologetic Abigail, who winces at having woken her.

“Sorry,” Abigail says gently.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay,” Myka says, quiet and gravelly.  She edges up to sitting, broken arm cradled in her lap.  “What time is it?”

“A little after nine,” Abigail says.  She plucks Myka’s glasses off of the table and offers them to her.

“Where’s everyone?”

“Artie is at the warehouse.  Claudia went to meet her brother for the weekend in Chicago.  Pete and Steve are after an artifact in Milwaukee.”

“And—”

“Flying back from England,” Abigail says softly.  “She’s supposed to be back any time now.”

“Oh,” Myka says with a blush.  “Is it that obvious?”

“To be fair, I am a psychiatrist,” Abigail says, smiling.  She motions to the chair Helena sits in so often.  “May I?”

“Of course.”

Abigail sits, hands folded in her lap, and her head tilts to the side slightly.  It’s unnervingly similar to the shrink Myka had been forced to seen after Sam’s death, and she swallows a measure of discomfort with a gulp of water.

“I get the feeling there’s a lot more going on between you and Helena than everyone else and Helena,” Abigail says.  She speaks slowly, deliberately, and Myka tenses at the words.

“Why is everyone suddenly concerned about this?  I have cancer, I just broke my arm, and you and Pete want to talk about my love life?”

“Love life?” Abigail raises her eyebrows, and Myka groans.  It draws a smirk from Abigail.  “You said it, not me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Myka grumbles.  “Don’t rub it in.”

“I’m not here to rub it in,” Abigail says.  “If you want to talk about it, okay.  If you don’t, also okay.  I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I’ve read your file, and I’ve worked with you for a little while now, Myka.  You’re the lynchpin of this entire team, you hold it together, and you know it.  But that doesn’t mean that you have to be the strongest person all the time.”

“I’m not,” Myka says.  “We don’t have a lynchpin.”

“Sure you do,” Abigail says easily.  “You’re Pete’s best friend, Artie’s protégé, Claudia and Steve’s older sibling.  I’ve read Artie’s reports from when Walter Sykes’ bomb went off here, and the aftermath, before and after he used the artifact.  You kept them on track when everything had gone to pieces, you got Artie and Pete in to get the astrolabe by sacrificing yourself to the authorities.  You’re the decision maker, the shot caller, and it puts a huge amount of pressure on you.”

“It’s not like that—”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Abigail interrupts, eyes crinkling with a smile.  “Myka, you’re brilliant, and you’re great at your job.  That’s nothing to be ashamed of, just like the fact that you’re sick and can’t necessarily do the heavy lifting for the team right now isn’t something to be ashamed of.”

Myka is silent, her eyes dropping down and focusing on the bright orange of her cast.  “I don’t know how to do this,” she admits quietly.  “Any of this.”

“’This’ being cancer, or ‘this’ being HG?”

“Either,” Myka says with a dark laugh.  “Both.  Any of it.”

“So, what do you want to deal with, then?”

Myka sighs, rubbing at her eyes with her unbroken arm.  “I don’t know.  None of it?”

“Well, I don’t believe that for a second,” Abigail says.  “Your idle state isn’t idle, it’s halfway to balls-the-wall.  Avoidance doesn’t suit you.”

“Right,” Myka says drily.  “Even my personality is stacked against me in this fight.”

“Not all of it has to be a fight,” Abigail says.  She leans forward, shoulders tilting gently towards Myka and eyes serious.  “I realize the cancer is a battle.  There’s no avoiding that.  But it’s a battle you’re certainly equipped for: you have the medicine, and the support system, and the emotional and physical strength to fight through it.  Whatever happens with that, it’s not going to be because you didn’t fight hard enough.  But whatever it is that’s going on with Helena—that doesn’t have to be a battle.”

“Doesn’t it?” Myka says.  “I’m sure you’ve read those files, too.  All the mistakes that were made.”

“She tried to end the world,” Abigail says, flat and dull.  “And you stopped her, because you understood her.  She turned around and saved you, and Artie, and Pete, and the warehouse.”

“And then she disappeared.” Myka’s eyes snap sharply at Abigail, her voice sharp.  “She ran away to the middle of nowhere, to a girl who she could pretend was her daughter.”

“And then she came back home,” Abigail argues.  “I’m not going to act like she hasn’t made mistakes she needs to atone for.  But have you considered that her mistakes are all rooted in a primal need to protect and to love?”

Myka bites down on the inside of her cheek, avoiding Abigail’s gaze, and locks her eyes on the outline of her feet under the blanket.

“HG had an out,” Abigail goes on.  “She had a life in Wisconsin, one that was quiet and separate from the warehouse, everything she supposedly wanted.  But all it took was a single phone call from Claudia and _your_ name, and she abandoned it all to be at your side.”

“What if she leaves again?  What if—what if she gets angry about her daughter again, or angry at the warehouse, or _bored_ with me and—”

“Myka,” Abigail says quietly.  “She’s spent every possible moment at your bedside.  Does that kind of behavior really lend itself to her getting bored?”

“What if I’m not enough?”

“Why should that ever stop anyone?”

“Because when she gets hurt, she doesn’t eat a gallon of ice cream, she hunts down a trident and tries to start a nuclear holocaust!”

Abigail laughs, full and loud.  “You really think you’re the only one with those concerns?  That the regents don’t have an eye on her at all times?  That she hasn’t been paraded through an interrogation in front of Steve just to ensure she isn’t lying?”

“I—didn’t know that,” Myka says after a long moment.  “They really did that to her?”

“I don’t think she’s going anywhere, Myka,” Abigail says.  She reaches out, hesitant and gently, and presses a hand to Myka’s elbow, just above the neon orange of her cast.  “She’s here for you, and she’s not going to leave unless you tell her to.  She wants to be here, because you’re here, and because she wants to be there for you and with you.  If you can’t see that that’s written into every single thing she’s done since she showed up here, then there’s nothing I can do for you.”

The clatter of the front door interrupts her, and they both jump.  Abigail frowns, checking her watch, and squeezes Myka’s elbow briefly before moving out of the room.  Myka slumps back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling tiredly.  Her arm aches and her test is tight, muscles clenching against Abigail’s words.  She inhales slowly, counting to sixteen, and then exhales just as slowly, just as Steve had taught her.

Her door creaks open a moment later, and her eyes fly open at the intrusion.

“Sorry,” Helena mumbles.  “I thought you might be asleep.”

“I figured you’d be on a plane,” Myka says.  Her uninjured hands presses to her bare scalp self-consciously, pulse thudding heavily as she considers how to get her hat from the bedside table to her bald head without being obvious.

“There was an earlier flight,” Helena says.  “Though I am knackered from it.  It was a dreadful trip, lots of crying babies.”

“Sounds terrible,” Myka says, smiling in spite of herself.  Helena smiles in response, easing into the room tentatively and taking a seat on Myka’s bed.

“My God, that is ghastly,” she says, fingers skimming over the plaster on Myka’ s arm.

“Pete did it,” Myka says.  “I was unconscious, I had no say in the matter.”

“It looks like it glow in the dark,” Helena murmurs.  “Does it?”

“I haven’t really paid attention,” Myka says.  Helena taps at the cast, fascination written across her features even as she yawns, and Myka slides back down until she’s lying down once more.

“Right, you’re probably exhausted,” Helena says, sitting up straighter.  “I broke my collarbone once, in 1889, it was the most exhausting experience of my life, I think.”

“Mhm,” Myka says drowsily.  The moment she was horizontal her fatigue swept back over her, and she tugs the blanket up to her shoulders.

“I’ll just—”

“Stay,” Myka says.  It stops Helena abruptly, halfway to standing, and she looks back to Myka uncertainly.  “Just—say?”

“Of course,” Helena says quietly.  Myka pulls the blankets back, watching as Helena toes out of her boots and tosses her jacket over towards the trunk housing all of the movies.  She slides under the blankets facing Myka, dark eyes scanning over Myka’s face.

“We’re going to talk about it,” Myka says, words slurring with sleep.  “But later. Right now I’m going to sleep without waking up to puke, and you’re going to sleep her with me.” 

“Of course,” Helena says again.  Her thumb skims over Myka’s lips briefly before she slides over, pressing closer as Myka rolls onto her other side.  Helena’s arm slips over her waist, carefully avoiding the sharp protrusion of her hipbone, and holds her tight until she falls back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's possible that i wrote this, and am posting it, while intoxicated.
> 
> don't judge me, writing is an alcoholic sport.


	6. Chapter 6

The next time Myka wakes up, the long shadows stretching across the floor indicate late afternoon.  Helena is flat on her back at Myka’s side, Myka’s broken arm pillowed on her stomach and braced carefully between Helena’s hands.  Myka squints, too sleepy to reach for her glasses just yet, at Helena’s profile. 

Helena wakes a few moments later, blinking into wakefulness abruptly and her head turning towards Myka.

“Hello,” Helena says.  One corner of her mouth tugs upwards.

“Hi.”  Myka rolls away briefly, fumbling for her glasses and shifting back onto her side to face Helena.  She hasn’t worn conctact lenses in almost a month.

“How’s your arm?”

“Broken,” Myka deadpans.  It draws a wider smile from Helena, and she rolls onto her side, mirroring Myka’s posture.  “It’s not bad.”

“Good,” Helena says.  “It’s fascinating how much and how little casts have changed.  The principle remains the same, though the execution has been refined so significantly.”

“Really?”

“We had something to the same effect, but it was far less neat,” she says.  “Some combination of linen and plaster of Paris, but it was heavy and quite the annoyance.”

“Was it really that bad, or did you just hate being restrained?”

Helena rolls her eyes, her nose wrinkling briefly as Myka smirks at her.  “The two are hardly mutually exclusive.”

“Right,” Myka says with a laugh.  “So how did you break your collarbone?”

“Shockingly enough, I was showing off.”  Helena frowns, fingertips pressing briefly to her own collarbone.  “The brother of Charles’ current paramour was staying with us for a few weeks while he had some business in the city, and he had spent his wild younger days running around with some circus or another.  He had quite an extensive repertoire of horseback tricks.”

“And, what, you wanted to impress him?  Or show him up?”

“Show him up, certainly,” Helena says with a snort.  “Christina was just shy of ten years old and thought he was the most extraordinary thing, was following him around constantly and talking my ear off about how extraordinary and handsome and wonderful he was.”

“So it was just to prove to your daughter that you were cooler than he was?”

“More or less,” Helena says.  “I was holding my own until he did some ridiculous sort of backflip, which I _knew_ without a doubt I couldn’t do, but I tried anyways.  Landed on a rock and snapped my collarbone clean through.  I’ve had a lump there ever since.”

Myka’s hand drifts up, fingers sliding past Helena’s and sliding along her collarbone and over the gentle rise and fall near her throat.  “A hundred years later, and it’s still there.”

“One of the many everlasting reminders of my ego getting in my way.”  Helena rolls her eyes, her quiet laugh rumbling through her chest and vibrating under Myka’s fingertips.

“So it was just to impress Christina?  Nothing for the handsome wonderful rider?”

“My—ah, attentions, you might say, were with someone else at the time.” 

“Victorian Casanova,” Myka says with a smirk.

“Hardly.”  Helena pushes at her shoulder gently, frowning playfully.  “I feel like you greatly overestimate my charm.”

“Yeah, well, I learned the hard way about underestimating it,” Myka retorts.  Less than a second after the words have left her mouth, a wave of nausea rushes through her, and she scrambles from the bed, barely making it free of the blankets and into the bathroom in time to retch into the toilet.

Helena settles at her side, a hand gentle on her back.  They’ve been here before, too many times, and Helena finds the bottle of water by the sink blindly, offering it to Myka after she’s finished.  Myka sags into her side, knees aching against the cold tile and throat burning from throwing up.

“All out?” Helena murmurs.  An arm wraps around Myka’s shoulders gently.

Myka stays silent, leaning against Helena and counting her breaths.  “Why are you here?” she finally asks.

“What?”

“Here,” Myka says, gesturing sloppily to the bathroom.  She shifts back, sitting tiredly into the corner formed by the bathtub and the wall.  “Why did you come back?”

“I—for you,” Helena says.  Her brow furrows, jaw tight, and one hand shifts to her locket. 

“But why _now_?  Why did you come back when Claudia asked you, but not me?”

“Myka, I—“

“You kissed me,” Myka says.  “I have cancer, I broke my arm,  and you kissed me.  Why is this happening _now_?  Why did you come back now?”

“I came back because Claudia said you were sick,” Helena says simply.  “Perhaps I should have left with you and Pete the first time, but at the time I certainly never thought that something like _cancer_ would ever factor in and stop me from seeing you again.”

“The only thing that’s ever stopped you from seeing me is _you_.”  Myka tugs her knees into her chest, her unbroken arm wrapping around them and her broken one resting uselessly on the floor.  “I asked you to come home with us.  I begged you, and you chose everything else over this.  Every time.”

“And I’d like to fix that,” Helena throws back.  “I want to be here, with you, Myka, but I’m certainly not going to force me way in if you don’t want me here.”

“Of course I don’t want you here!” Myka shouts hoarsely.  “Look at me!  I’m disgusting, I can barely function like a human being half the time, I can’t even make it into a shower on my own without breaking some bone—”

“Myka!” Helena says sharply.  “Shut up.”

“What if I die?” It comes out quiet and cracked.  Myka shifts from shouting to crying in a split second, and Helena recoils at the change.  “Helena, what if they can’t stop it?  What if the last thing you ever remember about me is that I died sick and slow and pathetic?”

“Myka,” Helena murmurs.  Her eyes are bright under the harsh bathroom light, and she tentatively slides closer, sitting on her heels in front of Myka.  “Myka, darling, there is always more to a memory than just the ending.

“In the very distant future, however you die, you won’t be remembered as pathetic, because you’ve never been pathetic.”  She tugs gently at Myka’s hand, gripping it between hers.  “None of this—cancer or chemotherapy or _anything_ —defines who you are or how anyone sees you.  You are what you do, not what is done to you.”

“I’m not strong for this,” Myka whispers.

“You are,” Helena says, harsh and insistent.  “You’re the single strongest thing in this new world I woke up to.  I never thought anything could be stronger than my grief or my anger, but you were.  You are strong enough for this, Myka, I know you are.”

“What if I’m not, though?”

“Then I will still be here,” Helena says firmly.  Her hands tighten around Myka’s.  “I’ve tried everything when it comes to dealing with life and love except actually dealing with it.  I’m not going to fight it or run from it, not this time.  Regardless of what happens, I will weather it all with you.”

“How am I supposed to trust that?”

“I don’t know,” Helena says with a sad smile.  “I suppose I’m hoping that you’ll take just one more leap of faith with me.”

“With you, or for you?”

“With.”  Helena nods sharply.  “Solving puzzles, saving the day, correct?”

Myka finally cracks a smile, her hand stirring within Helena’s and gripping back hesitantly.  “Dealing with love?” she asks, forehead wrinkling and an eyebrow raising slightly.  “Did you always just jump in headfirst like that in the nineteenth century, or did you ever court any of your many conquests?”

“There were _not_ that many,” Helena says with a glare. 

“Right,” Myka drawls.  She shifts to sitting crosslegged and tugs her hand free, pressing her palm against Helena’s jaw gently.  “So this is really happening?”

“God, I hope so,” Helena mutters.  It draws a smile from Myka, and Helena offers her own in return, crooked and hopeful.  “All of my cards are on the table, so I believe the next play is entirely up to you.”

“Right,” Myka says again. 

“That said, though,” Helena says thoughtfully.  “Would you mind terribly if I were to kiss you again?”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Helena, I just puked ten minutes ago.”

“Oh!” Helena says.  “Bollocks.  Forgot about that.”

“Maybe later,” Myka says with a smile.  Her hand skims over her head, thirty years of habit still searching for hair to push through, and she frown at the emptiness.

“Oh!” Helena repeats.  “I brought you something.  It’s downstairs, just a moment—”

“I can go downstairs,” Myka says stubbornly. 

“You su—”

“Yes,” Myka says, sharp and loud, and Helena smiles brightly.

“Fabulous.”  She hops to her feet and offers had hand to Myka, helping her up chivalrously.  “Shall we?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re kind of a dork?”

“I believe Claudia has mentioned it on more than one occasion,” Helena says.  She busies herself with straightening the blankets on the bed while Myka brushes her teeth, and then offers her hand once more as they leave the room.  Her hand stays wrapped around Myka’s as they make their way downstairs.

In the living room, Pete and Steve are just sitting down, coats still on.  Pete looks up tiredly from his spot on the couch, smiling up at Myka.  His gazes dips down to their hands momentarily, and his smile widens.

“Hey there, partner,” he says easily.  He salutes Helena.  “Lucy Diamond.”

“What?”

“Ignore him,” Myka says, glaring at him.  “He’s being a child.”

“All right,” Helena says slowly.  She slips free of Myka’s grip and makes her way over to the dining room, returning with a box in her hands, which she offers to Myka with a half-bow.

“Oh, hey, did you bring me a present, too?” Pete asks.

“Afraid not,” Helena says, not looking at him, her gaze still on Myka.  “Do you want to go back upstairs?”

“Oh, no,” Pete says.  “Now she _has_ to open it down here.”

“Shut up, Pete,” Myka says with an eye roll.

“No way, dude, if that’s a sex toy I want to see if your brain explodes,” Pete says.

“Right, okay,” Steve interrupts.  He grabs Pete by the collar, dragging him up.  “We’ll be—somewhere else.”

“Hey, come on, Jenksy—”

“Nuh-uh,” Steve says.  He drags Pete towards the kitchen.  “Seriously, man, you’re like a ten year old.”

Over his shoulder, Pete winks at Myka and throws a thumbs up towards Helena.  Myka laughs quietly, waving at him as he leaves, and finally accepts the box from Helena.  She takes Pete’s vacated spot on the couch, settling the box on her knees.

“So what’s the occasion?” she asks, looking up at Helena with a smile.

“There isn’t one, actually.  It’s something I’ve been meaning to get from London for a while.”

“Sounds ominous,” Myka says.  She lifts the lid off of the box ceremoniously, and frowns at the collection of hats staring up at her.  “What—”

“Okay, those, specifically, not the actual point,” Helena says.  “But I thought perhaps you might like some variety, and honestly, I had no idea there were that many types of hat in the world.”

Myka laughs, shifting through beanies and toboggans and baseball caps.  “Thank you anyways.”  She digs the hats out of the box and stacks them on the couch at her side.  Beneath them sits a thick leather folio, gleaming dully from the bottom of the box.

“When I asked to be bronzed, the regents gave me a few weeks to put my affairs in order,” Helena said quietly.  “Most of my efforts went to ensuring that my house would be preserved, and to hiding a few things within it.”

“Like that obnoxious vest of yours.”

“Just because I outsmarted you to get it doesn’t mean it’s _obnoxious_ ,” Helena says indignantly.  “Not the point, though.  One other thing I hid was—well, this.  It was a little more effectively protected than the vest, though, so I needed a little more uninterrupted time to access it.”

“Protected?”

“Let’s just say it involved a puzzle I had almost forgotten how to solve, and a lot of chimney dust.”

“Right,” Myka says absently.  Carefully, she lifts the folio out of the box and pushes the box to the side.  The weather is soft and well-worn, and the string holding it shut almost falls apart in her hands as she unties it.

Inside are stacks and stacks of paper, heavy and old, lined front and back with handwriting and diagrams and timelines.  Myka shifts silently through the papers, skimming over the family tree of the Time Traveller, the timeline of a Martian invasion, the research schematics of Griffin’s invisibility.

“Are these—these are yours?”

“Yes,” Helena says nervously.  “You mentioned before that you’d read a few of my novels when you were younger and—well, for me at least, when it’s come to fiction, I’ve always been as interested in the development of the story as much as I am the execution of it, and I thought perhaps—”

“These are your notes,” Myka breathes out.  “From when you wrote the books?”

“Yes,” Helena says.  “I won’t be offended if you’re not interested in them, of course.”

“No!” Myka says.  “No, I mean—yes, I’m interested.  This is incredible.  This is—Helena, God, thank you.”

“Really?”  Relief settles across Helena’s features, and she smiles easily.  “I—you’re welcome, of course.  I’m glad you like it.”

“I really do.”  Myka’s attention is already back on the papers, fingers following along the rough sketch of a grappling gun.  “Though you do realize you just set an impossibly high standard for gift giving in the future, right?”

“That doesn’t look like a sex toy,” Pete says from the doorway, leaning into the room curiously.

“Go away, Pete,” Myka says, not looking up.

“Seriously, what’s the fun in you getting a girlfriend if I don’t get to make jokes?” Pete grumbles.

“If you leave now, I’ll watch _Porkies_ with you later.” 

“And I’m gone.”  Pete disappears without a word, and Helena raises an eyebrow.

“That was impressive.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t promise I’d stay awake for the whole thing,” Myka says distractedly.  Helena chuckles, settling back into the couch at Myka’s side.  Myka leans back against her, tucking easily into the curve of her shoulder, and keeps reading.  Helena reads over her shoulder, arm wrapped around her casually, pointing out the occasional blip or fact with what she could remember writing so long ago.

When Artie comes in an hour later, they still haven’t moved. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> defense against any misappropriation of the real hg wells' story elements in my commentary therein: i haven't read war of the worlds, the time machine, or the invisible man in about a million (or like...fifteen) years, so my memory of all details are fuzzy at best. i don't think i cocked up any of the extremely vague references i made, but if i did, just punch me and let me know which one and i'll get off my ass to actually pick said books up again and, y'know, look at them.


	7. Chapter 7

The day of her last dose of chemotherapy, Myka walks into the treatment room with another of Helena’s stories tucked into her purse and a tin full of cookies.  In sixteen weeks of treatment, she’s interacted only cordially with the other patients in the room—David, 56, leukemia; Judy, 61, colon cancer; Jeremy, 73, lung cancer; Andrew, a sprightly 40, testicular cancer; all of them quiet and reserved in the face of their treatments—but she had cajoled Steve into making a batch of cookies to share with them and the nurses.  If all goes well, she’ll never see them again.

The cookies go over well, and Myka settles into her chair, IV plugged into the port in her chest, and reads through Helena’s story as the medicine feeds into her.  As she’s finishing the final page, there’s five minutes left before she can leave, and Helena appears on the other side of the glass wall, waving coyly and settling into the waiting area seat.  Myka blushes when Helena winks, bold and brazen as ever; next to Myka, Jeremy, chortles and nudges Myka in the arm, offering a wink of his own. 

Myka leaves with the best wishes of the other patients and a surprise hug from Judy.  In the waiting room, Helena offers her hand silently, and Myka takes it, leaving for hopefully the last time.  She refuses to look back, even when a distinctly Jeremy wolf-whistle floats out of the room and Helena laughs, clear and melodic.

“So,” Helena says as they make their way to the car.  “Last one, yeah?”

“That’s the idea,” Myka says.  Her fingers twitch on top of her knee, her other leg bouncing nervously. 

“Seems like something to celebrate, doesn’t it?”

“That seems like a good way to jinx it,” Myka says, elbowing her in the ribs.  Helena flinches away—she’s _ticklish_ , of all things, as Myka has learned—and shakes her head. 

“Have some optimism, darling,” she says.  “Hasn’t Pete imparted any of that on you after all these years?”

“Not exactly,” Myka drawls.

“Well,” Helena says brightly.  “Don’t tell him that.”  They reach the car, and Helena opens the door for Myka, bowing. 

“I just don’t want to get my hopes up before we know, is all.”  She rolls her eyes at Helena’s antics, climbing into the proffered seat anyways.  “The doctor said—”

“I’m well aware what the doctor said,” Helena says.  “But since you’re choosing to be stubbornly pragmatic, I’m choosing to balance out your stubbornness with my own and will be even _more_ optimistic.  The power of positive thinking and whatnot.”

“Right,” Myka says, smiling anyways.  She picks at the edge of her cast, and Helena reaches over and captures her fingers.

“Stop that,” she chastises.  “You’ll be out of that hideous thing in a few weeks, just leave it be.”

“Like you were any better when you broke your collarbone showing off for the dashing horseman,” Myka says with a smirk.  Her fingers twist around Helena’s anyways, smirk fading into a soft smile at the sight of their hands.  It’s been nearly six weeks and Helena has all but officially moved into Myka’s bed, and the moment of quiet ease between them still surprise her.

“As if I’m the best standard to hold oneself to,” Helena says.  “I don’t think I lasted a week in that bloody thing before I found a way out of it.”

“Of course you did.”

“No lasting damage,” Helena says with a shrug and a wink.  “I made do with a sling.  It led to me building  a grappling gun, so I have few regrets about it.”

“You invented a grappling gun because you broke your collarbone?”

“Hardly,” Helena snorts.  “I invented a grappling gun because I wanted one.  I got around to _building_ it because I was bored out of my mind.  And otherwise incapacitated by opiates.”

Myka laughs, shaking her head.  “Of course you would yank me into the sky with a grappling gun you built while you were _high_.”

“Excuse me,” Helena says indignantly.  “I knew exactly what I was doing.”

“When you were drugged?”

“Hardly.  But I knew perfectly well that it could hold us both when I _saved your life_.”

They pull to a stop in front of the bed and breakfast, Myka laughing still at Helena’s indignation.  Pete is sitting on the front porch, and he bounces down the steps and yanks Myka’s door open.

“You finished!”

“Oh my God, calm down,” Myka mutters.  “I’m not finished yet.”

“Yeah, but you finished your treatments! Come on, be happy, Mykes!”

“Good luck with that,” Helena says.  “She’s determined to be pessimistic.”

“What?  No.  Myka, no,” he says sternly.  “Come on, we’re going to go shoot things with Teslas until you crash and then we’re going to watch one of those ridiculous movies you like—”

“Just because they don’t have sex or explosions doesn’t mean they’re ridiculous,” Myka says as he drags her towards the bed and breakfast.  She glances back over her shoulder at Helena, catching a smile and a wave from her before they disappear inside.

 

* * *

 

A week later, Myka has an appointment to see her oncologist.  She lays awake the whole night, in spite of a familiar exhaustion weighting her body after days and days of throwing up.  Helena curls around her, sleeping peacefully, and Myka wonders if she’ll still get a story for every treatment if she hasn’t beaten the cancer yet.

At the breakfast table, Pete and Abigail bicker over something about coffee and Myka picks at the apple she’d sliced for herself.  Helena sits at her side, a hand on her knee, and is quiet as the others talk.  The conversation breaks when Pete’s Farnsworth buzzes.

“Pete, we got a ping,” Artie’s voice sounds from the speaker.  Myka’s gaze snaps up from her apple to where Pete is looking her way, and her fingers clench into a fist.  Helena’s hand tightens on her knee, eyes slipping back and forth between the two of them.

“Artie, not—”

“I know, but this is important, there’s a kid in a coma,” Artie says.  “We have to go, Myka will call us—”

“I’ll go,” Helena says. 

“What?” Pete and Myka say at the same time.

Helena offers her a small smile.  “I’ll go.  Too many people in the office will make the doctor nervous, right?”  She turns to Pete.  “If you would tell Artie, please.”

“Yeah, Artie, HG is gonna go,” Pete says, not looking away from Helena.

“Thank you,” Myka mumbles weakly into Helena’s shoulder.

“Of course,” she says, kissing her temple.  She squeezes Myka’s knee once more and then slides to her feet.  “I’ll be at the warehouse shortly, Artie,” she says over Pete’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” Pete says quietly as he closes the Farnsworth. 

“Of course,” she says again.  She disappears up the stairs, and Pete turns back to Myka.

“Mykes, you sure you don’t—”

“I’m sure,” Myka says.  “I—Pete, I need—you have to be there, okay?”

“And I want to be there, but HG is—she’s your…what are you guys these days?  And I’m just—”

“Pete, you aren’t _just_ anything, okay, don’t be an idiot.” Myka rolls her eyes.  “You’re my best friend, I need you to be there.  Helena gets that.”

“Okay,” he says.  He squints at her, head tilting.  “Seriously, though, what are you guys?  Girlfriends?  Don’t say _partners_ , that’s weird because you’re _my_ partner and we are definitely not like that.”

Myka laughs and throws a slice of apple at him.  “We’re—we just are, I guess,” she says after a moment. 

“Oh,” Pete says.  He smiles widely.  “Sure took you long enough.  I was going to lock you two in a closet if you didn’t get your butts into gear.”

“Oh, my God,” Myka says.  She abandons her apple and stands from the table.  “I’m going to go—see her off.”

“You guys are cute and it’s gross,” he calls after her.  On the stairs, Helena pauses halfway down and smiles at his words.  Myka rolls her eyes from the base of the stairs, hand pressing habitually to the beanie covering her head.

“Ignore him,” Myka says.

“I almost always do,” Helena says.  She stops on the last step, the rise giving her a few inches of height over Myka.

“You really do have a height thing, don’t you?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Helena says.  She settles her hands on Myka’s shoulders, warm against the bony protrusions of her collarbones.  “Please do let me know immediately, though.”

“Of course,” Myka says quietly.  “Thank you for doing this.”

“I understand why you want him to be there,” Helena says.  “I’ve also been trying this thing where I try to ignore my ego.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, it’s quite the challenge.”  Her jacket pocket buzzes, and Helena rolls her eyes as she extracts the Farnsworth.  “Yes?”

“What’s taking so long?” Artie says, cranky as ever.

“I’m on my way,” Helena says tartly.  “Calm down, getting excited is as bad for your blood pressure as sweets.” 

Myka laughs quietly as Helena pockets the Farnsworth.  “Be safe, yeah?  And don’t let Artie drive you too crazy.”

“I shall make every effort,” Helena says solemnly.  She tilts Myka’s chin up and kisses her, lingering for a long moment, before she pulls back.  “Call me immediately, please?”

“I’ll make every effort,” Myka echoes.

“Righty ho, then,” Helena says cheerfully.  She picks up her bag and kisses Myka once more, brief and heated, before heading towards the door. 

Myka watches her go, not moving until Pete appears at her side. 

 

* * *

 

The waiting room outside the doctor’s office smells different than the one outside the treatment rooms.  There’s a lingering scent of hand sanitizer instead of the industrial antiseptic, and over top of it floats the tang of orange air freshener.  Myka stares blankly at the magazine article in her hands, turning pages without reading them; next to her, Pete plays a game on his phone, muttering curses periodically.

“Myka Bering?”

A nurse ushers them back into a room, motioning for Myka to take a seat on the exam table.  Her movements are brisk as she takes Myka’s temperature and blood pressure, and she leaves after a few minutes of work with a cordial “The doctor will be in momentarily.”

“So,” Pete says, rocking back on his heels.  His jacket is slung over the spare chair in the room, but he stands tensely, arms over his chest. 

“So,” Myka repeats.  Her fingers wrap around the edge of the table.

“I hate waiting,” Pete says darkly.  “It’s so stupid.”

“Yeah,” Myka says.  “It really is.”  Her words fall flat in the air between them, her hands gripping tighter to the table, and her breath catches in her chest.  Pete’s eyes widen minutely, and he steps over to her side, hopping up on the table next to her.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he says quietly.  “You’re Myka Bering, you can beat anything.  Even cancer.”

“Right,” she barks out.  “Even cancer.”

There’s a short knock on the door, and her oncologist steps in to the room, a file and a set of MRI images in his hands.

“Myka, good to see you,” he says.  He shakes her hand, and then Pete’s.  “And Mr.—”

“Pete, just Pete.” 

“Nice to meet you,” he says.  He slides the MRI films free and shoves them up into the clips in front of the lightboxes.

“So,” he says.  “Either of you know what we’re looking at?”

“Not a clue,” Pete says.

“MRIs,” Myka says quietly.  “Of my—”

“Oh,” Pete says.  His nose wrinkles.  “Ew.”

The doctor laughs and Myka elbows him in the side.  “Anyways,” the doctor says.  “I could point at a lot of really specific things right now and draw this out, or I could just be nice and tell you that, as far as we can tell right now, your treatment was successful and you’re moving into remission.”

“Yes!” Pete jumps up off the table, arms over his head like he’s just scored a touchdown.  “I told you!” He points at Myka wildly and jumps up and down.

“Remission?” she says quietly.

“Effectively, yes,” the doctor says.  “Of course, as I’m sure you know, that isn’t to say that you’re _cured_ , but it means that, between the surgery and the chemo, we’ve stopped the cancer for now.  You’ll need to be checked regularly, and there is a possibility of recurrence.”

“How much of a possibility?”

“At the risk of sounding overly optimistic…maybe fifteen percent?”  He smiles when Pete jumps up and down again.  “If you remember from when we talked after your surgery, you were lucky, because when we found the cancer it had only spread to one ovary.  Ninety percent of patients in your shoes make it past the five year mark, at which point they’re considered cured.”

“Ninety percent?” she repeats, finally daring to smile.

“Ninety,” he confirms. 

“Oh,” she says faintly.  “So I’m going to be okay?”

“Nothing is certain,” he says.  “But things are looking good today.”

Pete finally gives up and yanks Myka into a hug.  Her cast collides with his back, but she grips at his shirt anyways.  “You’re such a badass,” he murmurs, and she clings tighter.

The doctor clears his throat after a few seconds, and Pete jumps back, blushing.  “Sorry, doc.”

“It’s okay,” he says.  “I understand completely.  I just want to go over a few things, and then you’ll need to set up your next appointment, but after that you’re free to celebrate.”

“Awesome,” Pete says, bouncing on the balls of his feet and gripping Myka’s hand tightly.

“Pete,” she says quietly.  “Can you—can you call Helena while we do that?”

“You sure?  Don’t you want to be the one to tell her?”

“I think she’d rather know sooner than have it be from me,” Myka says.

“Sure, okay.”  He kisses her cheek and shakes the doctor’s hand, disappearing into the hallway.

“Good to go?” the doctor says.

“Definitely,” Myka says, smiling a little wider.  He offers a smile of his own and hands her a folder, tugging a stool over to sit on.

 

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Myka slips out of the office to find Pete in a nook by the elevator, talking on the Farnsworth.

“Hey hey hey, here she is,” he says.  He shoves the Farnsworth into her hands with a grin.  “It took me a bit to get ahold of them, they were in the middle of something that involved running.”

“Running?” Myka’s forehead furrows, and she looks down to the screen to see Helena smiling up at her, hair mussed and face smeared with what looks like soot.  “What are you—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Helena says briskly.  “Pete says you’re in remission?”

“Yeah,” Myka says with a quiet smile.  “I am.”

“I knew you were stronger than this,” Helena says, soft and proud. 

“You guys are so gross,” Pete says over Myka’s shoulder.  She elbows him in the stomach, and the air whooshes out of his lung and by her ear.  Helena laughs, tinny through the Farnsworth, but a crash behind her catches her attention.

“Oh, bother,” she says crossly.  “I think Artie just fell into a pool, I should go deal with that.  Take care, love, we should be back late tonight.”  The screen goes dark on her winking at them, and Pete rolls his eyes audibly.

“So.  Grossly.  Cute.” He says.

“I’ll hit you again,” Myka says.  “Don’t think that I won’t.”

“Hey, violence is not the answer,” he says sternly.  “Now come on, let’s go, Claud and Steve are on their way back from Cheyenne, they should be here in time to have a lunch party.”

He drags her out of the office and lets her control the radio the whole way home.

 

* * *

 

Late that night, after Claudia and Steve and Abigail and Pete have formulated an afternoon-long celebration and Myka’s succumbed to her exhaustion, she collapses into bed.  Artie and Helena are still on their way back, and she curls into the center of the bed, light on and book in her hands, determined to wait until they get home. 

She falls asleep after three pages, and doesn’t wake until the book is being tugged out of her hands gently. 

“Sorry,” Helena says quietly.  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay,” Myka says, bleary and tired.  She smiles sleepily up at Helena, who’s shrugging out of her jacket and unbuttoning her vest. 

“Sorry it took so long to get home,” Helena adds.  “Artie was determined to fly first class and we missed our connecting flight because he was trying to upgrade the seats.”

“It’s okay,” Myka says again.  “Because I’m in remission.”

“That you are.”  Helena kicks her boots off and slides under the covers.  “I always knew you were stronger than cancer.”

“There’s still a chance of recurrence—”

“Be quiet,” Helena orders.  “That is an issue for another day.  For today, you have beaten this, and we are happy.”

“We are,” Myka mumbles.  She curls into Helena’s side.  Within a minute, she’s back asleep, peaceful even with the quiet ever-present edge of chemotherapy nausea edging into her stomach. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Housekeeping Commentary #1: recurrence percentages were taken from some quick and dirty googling-- I ballparked an average of the handful of sources that I came up with regarding five-year survival rate, all taken on the underlying assumption that Myka's cancer was caught early enough to be dealt with before having spread past one of the ovaries. Said assumption is 100% just me playing god, because, hey, my story, and thus far there's been no canon establishment of the precise nature or extent of her cancer.
> 
> Housekeeping Commentary #2: once again, the vast majority of this is based on my own experiences, personal or peripheral, with cancer. Ovarian cancer has not, thus far, been one of those experiences (please excuse me while I go knock on every piece of wood in a mile radius and sacrifice a goat to the universe for safety purposes), so I'm flying 50% blind in that regard. The nuances of ovarian cancer treatments are very obviously not something I would ever pretend to have any knowledge of, and my research has been admittedly superficial, because I'm an asshole and also because I'm stupid-busy day to day. I apologize for the fact that my own arrogance and ambitions in starting this story have so far outstripped the time or emotional energy I've had to dedicate to it.


	8. Chapter 8

Recovery comes in spurts and setbacks.  Though she’s officially in remission, it’s another week before the brushes of nausea fade away, and a week again before the cast is removed from her arm.  The skin is withered and white as the cast is removed, and her nose crinkles at the sight, even though it’s not all that much paler than her other arm.  The weakness in her right arm is hardly more significant than that in her left, and she slumps frustratedly in the car the whole drive home, ignoring Helena’s attempts at conversation.

In her room, she pulls a lockbox with her service weapon out of the closet.  The gun feels heavier than it ever has, even fully unloaded, and her arms shake after less than ten seconds of aiming it at the lamp across the room.  She locks the gun back up and stows it in her closet, where Helena isn’t likely to find it—the other woman has expressed a violent distaste for guns more than once—and marches over to Pete’s room.  He’s sound asleep, sprawled on his bed with a movie running in the background.  The grip strengtheners he’s started using obsessively are sitting on his bedside table, and she squirrels them back to her room, though not before pausing Pete’s movie.

It’s another week and a half before Artie gives into and lets her back in the warehouse with a stringent restriction that she’s not to leave the office.  Pete and Claudia steal Artie’s Segway for her so she can come visit the Pete Cave, but she settles into the research easily. 

Helena is ever-present at her side when not sent out with Steve or Claudia to find an artifact.  They bicker constantly—Myka is obsessively organized, following patterns and regiments in her search for information, while Helena tends to dive in blindly and follow whatever idea looks most interesting—and inevitably wind up in some compromising position or another that leaves Artie cursing them to the end of time.  More than once, one of Myka’s now-endless supply of hats is found three days later, hanging off a roofing beam or the top corner of the filing cabinets.  Pete, invariably, high fives them both; Claudia blushes; Artie has a fit.

Six weeks after that, and Myka’s hair is finally looking like something more than a buzz cut, and she can hold a Tesla or a pistol and fire it without being jolted backwards; her aim is somewhat less than perfect—embarrassing, is how Pete described it with a smirk—but that’s on the mend, too.  Helena just rolls her eyes at their daily target practice, since it involves live ammunition instead of a Tesla, and insists that Myka can’t consider herself back up to speed until she’s the one yanking people into the sky with a grappling gun.

At four months out, she finally goes to see her family.  Tracy’s daughter is almost eighteen months old, squat and soft and messy and adorable, and her parents look so much older than the last time Myka saw them. 

She brings Helena, who charms Myka’s mother with her accent and Myka’s father with her literary insights, enough so that the fact that she brought a woman home somehow isn’t an issue.

They stay for a week, and when they get home, Artie and Mrs. Frederic finally allow Myka back out in the field.  They go as a team—Pete and Myka and Helena—and Myka’s exhausted halfway through the first day, but it’s a good exhausted, a familiar exhausted, the one that comes from stopping Pete and Helena from getting into violent matches of rock paper scissors or or over who carries Myka’s suitcase when she gets tired or seeing who can charm a phone number off of the cute gas station attendant. 

It’s familiar, and it’s not, because they shuffle into a vaguely unseemly hotel at almost midnight after chasing an artifact all day, and Pete gets his own room and Helena carries their bags to their room and curls around Myka on the bed.  Myka is halfway to sleep within minutes, Helena’s even pulse pacing her own, breath warm against the back of her neck. 

Her hair is growing back—it’s coming to that awkward length where it’s too long to be a pixie cut and too short to do anything with, and Pete likes to compare it to what he calls the Early Bieber Years, solely because it pisses her off—and she can run a mile again, can shoot an entire magazine out of her service weapon and hit the bullseye two shots out of three, can handle a day of travel and artifact hunting without collapsing.

This is how it’s supposed to be, Helena solid at her back and Pete across the hall and Artie and Claudia and Steve and Abigail supporting them from the home. 

Healing feels like this.


End file.
